Well what do you know, this week got interesting. By far the weakest part was stupid Derek, so we'll start with him. He's been doing nothing but drinking and wallowing since Jen died (and it sounds like he's also now named in a lawsuit over her death) and he finds out that he's had more patients die than live. He takes off to go wallow some more, defying the Chief's ordering him to stay and operate. The Chief, Bailey, Meredith and Crisitina have been working on three siblings who all have a gene for some horrific type of stomach cancer, so the two sisters have their stomachs removed to prevent it. Their brother opts out, and the sister tells Meredith you don't give up on the ones you love and she'll convince him. The Chief then asks Mere to help bring Derek back, and fesses up about him having a ring to convince her that Derek doesn't really want to be left alone. But Derek has moved all of his things back to the trailer, and drunkenly yells at Meredith with some pretty spot-on but cruel comments and then bats the ring off into the grass somewhere to prove he wants to be alone. Mere promises she's not giving up, but I say let him be -- the show was better without all of his whining and posturing this week.
The Chief is acting like a total child -- literally like a little kid who has had a toy taken away -- and keeps sniping at Bailey for going into peds. She winds up calling Adele and telling on him, so Adele shows up to give him the reaming he needed and also to give Bailey some words. Because Adele is awesome and always right, they end up making up.
Alex, Hunt and Arizona get a patient who supposedly has epilepsy, but Alex manages to catch that it might be a heart problem. They do a risky procedure and Alex kind of freaks out, but it turns out he was totally right and saved the girl's life. Arizona congratulates him and calls him the resident to watch, and he runs gleefully to go tell Izzie. It's one of Alex's best moments ever -- clearly he's just used to never being praised or encouraged and it might be what he needs to really make it as a doctor. Unfortunately he's going to be busy with some personal problems really quickly.
Izzie is still hounding the interns to diagnose Patient X, and while it's achingly obvious that it's Izzie herself, this is Seattle Grace, so no one picks up on it. They finally (mercifully) land on a diagnosis -- Izzie has melanoma that has metastasized to her brain, and even with treatment she has a 5% chance of living. She doesn't tell Alex because she doesn't want to bring him down when he's so happy, and she doesn't tell George even though it seems like George might suspect the truth about what is going on. She winds up admitting it to Cristina, since Cristina will be able to handle it. And while it seems that maybe she might try and keep it a secret, I have to guess that with the aggressive treatment that actually won't be possible, so we can have an actual storyline going forward instead of just yet again one person not telling another something really important as this show has fallen back on so many times. Fingers crossed, at least.
Three days after we last left our fighting doctors, Meredith is talking about shadows. "Every surgeon I know has a shadow. A dark cloud of fear and doubt that follows even the best of us into the OR." Derek looks like a homeless man, unshaven, unbathed and surrounded by garbage on the couch, eating out of a box of cereal. Meredith, Alex, Lexie and Izzie are watching him and Meredith is trying to defend her boyfriend when Alex says that he is fried. She points out that he lost a patient and was hit with a lawsuit (presumably about said patient) in the same week. Alex is just pissed that Derek is eating Alex's cereal, but Izzie dreamily defends him, saying, "Something huge and life-altering happened to him and he's taking stock. Figuring out his move. We shouldn't judge him." Oh, but we totally will, and we'll judge you too, Blondie. When both of you aren't such jerks anymore I'll see about revising that policy. Meredith finally declares them all cowards, I think because they won't talk to the stinky form on the sofa, and she walks up to compliment him for eating and to suggest a shower. Her hair looks as bouncy and amazing as his looks greasy. His drama really agrees with her locks, at least. She asks if he's going to go into the hospital and he mopes that he has to go for the deposition, to explain how he killed someone's pregnant wife. Meredith tells him that's good and then corrects her meaning, but he just glares at her, shoves the cereal box at Alex, and storms off while Mere makes excuses that he'll be fine.
"We pretend the shadow isn't there, hoping that if we save more lives, master harder techniques, run faster and farther, it will get tired and give up the chase. But like they say, you can't run from your shadow." Hunt proves her point nicely when Cristina comes up to him, sleeping on a gurney, and leans in to wish him good morning. He awakes with a start and pushes Cristina across the hall and into a cart full of supplies, cutting her arm. She greets him with a put out, "Good morning!"
Hunt works on taping up the wound on Cristina's arm while she makes small talk about the time she dreamt she was falling out a window and holding on to some curtains. She woke up to find she was actually pulling out Meredith's hair. He doesn't really answer since he knows she's trying to make light of what happened so she starts to talk about the trauma that they have coming in. Hunt, though, orders her off of his service despite her protests. When Meredith comes in and asks what happened Cristina brushes it off, saying she tripped and fell, and she's fine. Hunt jumps in to say that she's not, but he doesn't fess up to what really happened and once he leaves, Cristina just tells Mere there was an accident and asks what's up with her. Mere tells her that Derek won't get off the couch and Cristina groans, "Ugh. So the weaker sex."Speaking of, Mark winces as Callie looks at his still-battered hand and tells him he still can't do surgery that day even though he wants to. They recount the fight and Callie asks him if he's talked to Derek, but Mark protests that Derek threw the first punch, which means he's not reaching out. Callie tries to weakly defend that Mark caught Derek at a bad time but Mark is unsympathetic about his friend losing a patient. "We're surgeons. We're men. We lost patients." He goes on that this doesn't give Derek the right to be an ass, and he can't believe he's now supposed to ask for forgiveness. I agree wholeheartedly about the ass part, and think that maybe Mark should just keep fighting with Derek in hopes that it drives him away completely to somewhere he can be bitchy and condescending to his heart's content while we don't have to watch. Arizona walks by and Callie freaks out and hides, having to explain that she went "all Say Anything" in front of Arizona's date and now she's hiding. When Mark snarks about her maturity, she is able to hit right back with a reminder that he was in a fist fight, so he can't judge. Lexie then walks up and says hi, happily grabbing his hurt hand as she does. As he winces she apologizes for everything, and then reports that Derek isn't doing well and maybe Mark should talk to him? Mark can't believe he's hearing more of this and Lexie leaves.
Izzie dreamily watches Alex be a big boy doctor, and muses about how he's going to be an awesome attending in 10 years. He's totally suspicious but she thinks it should be enough that she just wants to fantasize about her boyfriend and the future. If this weren't television, I might buy that. But Alex doesn't know he's a television character, so he seems to accept it and kisses her. Ryan then runs up to let her know they have something on Patient X so they take off as Mere and Cristina walk up. Cristina is upset that with this new teaching thing Izzie has going, there are no interns to do grunt work. She also points out that while the rest of the residents fight for surgeries, Izzie hasn't picked up a scalpel in recent memory. "She's falling behind. She's the new O'Malley." Alex immediately defends that she is nothing like George, prompting George himself to call, "Helloooooo..." in hopes that they might realize he's there and stop talking about him. Bailey then walks up and assigns George to the clinic, Meredith and Yang with her and Alex to Hunt, despite Cristina's protests that she was supposed to work with her damaged boyfriend that day. Richard then walks up and ignores Bailey completely while he asks Mere if Derek is coming in. She confirms that he is, and then once gone Bailey grabs him to point out that she's been paging him for a while for help on a case. He asks passive-aggressively, "No peds today?" When she says no he grumbles, "Must be slumming." I think that the average emotional age of the entire staff hovers around 13 years old most of the time, but this week it's especially pronounced.
Her case involves three siblings, Tricia, Megan and Michael, who all carry the gene for some absolutely horrible strain of stomach cancer and therefore all have a 3 in 4 chance of getting it. Almost everyone on their mom's side of the family is dead, except for one lucky one who is merely 90 pounds and in hospice. That's quite a silver lining there. The brother is Kostas from Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and as I've noticed when I've caught him on TV before, he's not nearly as hot as when he's tan and speaking with a Greek accent. Bailey tells her residents that the sibs have decided to take the step, and Tricia explains they made a pact and are in it together. "Cut our stomachs out, Dr. Bailey." I love Cristina for the fact that she starts to wiggle a little bit and can't hide her sheer delight at the upcoming surgery.
Meanwhile, a 17-year-old girl is brought in to the ER in the middle of a seizure and not responding to any medication. She collapsed during a band performance and still has on her unfortunate green and yellow uniform. Hunt knows that shocking her will either kill or help her and after a moment, he decides to take a chance and goes for it.
After a lot of Serious Stares, the girl's vitals come back and Arizona compliments Hunt on his judgment call. The girl, Beth, then wakes and realizes in horror that not only did she seize again, but she did it during a performance. Alex tells her to relax, since it's not like she crapped her pants, but she cries, "It is like I crapped my pants. I had a seizure in front of the whole marching band; it's exactly like I crapped my pants!" She also knows that something called the "seizure patrol" is going to kill her. At that, two royally pissed-off band members slouch into the room. As seizure patrol, their job is to immediately drop their instruments and roll Beth onto her side so she doesn't choke on her tongue. But as they describe it, the girl spits the words out as if she's never been more inconvenienced by trying to help someone not die. Ms. Seizure Patrol then goes on to complain that they were in a regional parade and favored to win, but then Beth took a lot of people down with her so presumably they're out of it now. It's actually kind of stunning how much more she cares for the band in general than for a sick member. Alex shoos the Patrol out to call Beth's parents, and then Hunt orders tests. Since Beth already crashed once she needs to be monitored and Alex is given the job since there are no interns around to do it, and Alex is predictably put out.
All of the interns have gathered around Izzie while Lexie presents what they know about Patient X, which is basically just that she had elevated LDH levels. Izzie asks what they do and when they guess an upper GI, she says that's just what the patient did and throws up a film. She then asks what that tells them, and it feels a little like we should be able to tell something ourselves from the film on the wall, but as happens so often, it means nothing to me.
Cristina and Meredith are handing out the pre-surgery information sheets to the sibs, and Kostas is understandably horrified to read possible side effects such as "dumping syndrome" and "anal leakage." Cristina says in her best "duh" voice that this is a major surgery where they will change the way their entire digestive systems work, but it seems that Megan and Kostas didn't really understand that before the handout. I find that a little bit hard to believe, but... well, better TV and parallel storylines and all that, blah blah blah. Megan expresses just a bit of doubt but Kostas has a tantrum, yelling about how he's got a girlfriend, and he snowboards, and he's president of his fraternity and he's not sure how any of that is going to continue if he's worried about anal leakage. Megan weakly says that this is important to Tricia but Kostas is pissed that Tricia has planned everything in their lives, and if he doesn't want to butcher himself, "She can't make me." Of course Tricia is wheeled back into the room right in time to hear that and she asks if he'd rather die a slow, horrible death like their mom and all their other relatives. Kostas clings to his 1 in 4 shot of being okay and continues to yell while Megan seems more and more conflicted. She says that she didn't realize what a big deal this really was, and she has to have some time to think about it -- all of which clearly guts her older sister.
Richard is trying to schedule surgeries and his mood clearly has not improved as he keeps yelling at the poor nurse doing the writing. He's got a craniotomy and demands to know where Shepherd is but Mark walks up and says that the Chief can't rely on Shepherd, but can Mark do anything? Richard just gripes about how Derek is missing, he has no Chief of Cardio, and he's got, "general surgeons quitting on me left and right." Well, you've only got one as far as we've seen, but okay. [Well, there was Faye Dunaway who got fired/quit recently too, but since she never really did any surgeries, that doesn't seem like too much of a loss. -- Angel] Mark says that this then is a bad time for him to admit that he still can't operate. When the Chief gives him a death stare, though, Mark changes his mind and promises that Richard can count on him. Then, a short balding surgeon -- the anti-Derek, if you will -- says that he can do the craniotomy. After a somewhat rude hesitation, Richard then assigns this Dr. Nelson to the craniotomy and mumbles, "Appreciate it, John." Meekly, Nelson corrects, "It's Jim." Mark then welcomes him to the hospital, figuring he is new, and Nelson has to correct that he's been there for ten years and was the interim neuro chief, "Before Shepherd in his red cape swooped in here from New York." Mark takes a different tack and introduces himself, but Nelson points out that they've met each other three times. I'm not sure if you noticed, but he's forgettable. There will be plenty to make sure you don't forget just how unforgettable he is, though, don't you worry.
The two livid members of the Seizure Patrol are waiting in Beth's room and Ms. S.P. bitches that she doesn't know why their advisor even let Beth join, adding scathingly, "It's not like she's a master flautist." Ah, band insults. Alex gets sick of the bitching (especially as if Beth isn't RIGHT THERE) and sends them out; when they protest that they are supposed to stay he yells that he's the seizure patrol now. He then tells Beth her friends are jerks and she quickly explains that they aren't her friends. "Once you spaz out in front of the whole school friends are kind of hard to come by." Almost every day I have a little reminder as to why I'm so happy to have my school days behind me and that I'm an adult, and this is that moment for me today. Alex points out that she can't help the seizures, but no one forced her to join the band. "It's like spreading nerd on nerd." She doesn't take offense but instead fights back that she likes it and she's good at it. When she finds out he was a wrestler in high school she gives as good as she gets, asking if he's got on tights under his lab coat. Alex tells her that was before, and he's a surgeon now, so she puts it into terms he understands and asks how he'd feel if he seized every time he went into the OR. It does the trick, and he understands her a bit more.
Callie is unhappily working on Mark's hand, reminding him that as his doctor she isn't recommending what he's about to do. He maintains that he needs to be able to operate and she assures him that he will, he'll just be in a world of hurt later. He asks her if she knows Dr. Nelson and after a moment of thought chuckles and remembers that she does, calling him "Shadow Shepherd." Nice, since the guy was there before Shepherd was. I get it, but it seems like someone could have been a little cleverer with a nickname. She explains that he's okay, but he's JV to Derek's varsity. She continues to come up with witty comparisons along those lines until Mark stops her and asks, "So just because a guy doesn't publish fancy clinical trials or take on flashy surgery or have creepy perfect hair he's less than a man?" She admits, "Kinda," and then injects something into his hand. I think that the most important factor he lists is clearly the hair -- you can't be a good surgeon without the hair, right? Clearly, not in this hospital. Nelson is doomed.
Mere finds Derek dressed but not looking much better than he did earlier, slumped in a chair in a conference room. He's surrounded by files, and when she asks how it went he reports that they told him his death rate, and nods towards the two piles on the table. The larger of the two are all of the patients who have died. Mere tries to remind him that most of his patients were terminal when they came to him, but Derek won't be pulled out of his good wallow; he notes that he's killed more than Dahmer, Manson and Bundy combined. Mere argues that he's not looking at the big picture but he pouts, "This is the big picture," and then shuffles out.
He passes Richard in the hall, who ask if he can do a couple of surgeries, but Derek just growls that he's not operating today. Richard starts to plead a bit that he knows he's got the lawsuit and lost a patient but he needs him back to work, "Doing the job I hired you to do." While he finally has adopted the air of being the boss, it's too little too late and Derek maintains he won't operate. At this point, the Chief melts down completely, screaming down the hall and in front of everyone that he's not asking, he's telling Derek. However, he won't back up his words with any sort of action and so Derek just walks out while Meredith hangs her head.
At lunch, Mere tells Cristina about Derek while Cristina complains that Hunt won't even look at her since "he went all Apocalypse Now" on her. They continue to each have their own conversation when the other stops for breath and it's generally repetitive except for one interesting thing: Meredith actually admits that Derek got scalpel happy during Jen's surgery and that now he needs to face the music. I don't know if I really thought she'd ever put that so bluntly. Cristina, meanwhile, is arguing that she's not a wilting flower. Izzie has been watching them and starts to laugh at them, imagining them in a nursing home talking at one another in 50 years. Mere and Cristina stare at her like she's a weirdo for her outburst, but she takes no notice and instead comments dreamily about how much she loves lunch.
Her boyfriend, meanwhile, does paperwork in Beth's room. Alarms notify him that her vitals start to drop and he looks up in confusion -- after a moment, she begins to seize and he calls a code blue.
Richard, Bailey, Mere and Cristina are taking out Tricia's stomach, and when they're done Richard asks how you close things up and Yang says to sew. Bailey interrupts to ask Mere the same question since she believes in stapling instead. The Chief is aghast and totally snotty about it but Bailey defends her choice with some valid medical reasoning and calls using the stapler her specialty. Richard shoots back that he thought her specialty was babysitting children, and he's surprised she's not doing that right now. Score one to Miranda (even though the Chief lobbed her a softball) as she pointedly replies, "Frankly, sir, I feel like I am." I've maintained all season that Richard should do something rather than just bitch and moan about the state of his hospital, and maybe act like a leader, but he's hitting a new low even for him this week. He glares at Bailey but they are interrupted when Cristina feels something bad, and they make a lot of dramatic eye contact as Bailey warns, "Tell me that's not what I think it is."
Izzie's delight about her midday meal has worn off and she mopes as the interns all try to figure out what's up with Patient X. They finally come up with an answer -- that the LDH must be a false positive, and she's totally fine! Everyone begins to babble happily but Izzie screams at them, "She is not fine!" She details how Patient X had visual, auditory and tactile hallucinations (at least she was doctor enough to not admit to the ghost sex) about her dead fiancée. She repeats that the patient is not fine, and the interns are missing something, not looking in the right place. Yeah, what they're missing is that it's totally Izzie, because it's not rocket science to realize that a 29-year-old female with a dead fiancée who has been acting like a loon is standing RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM. I am getting so tired of all of the suspension of disbelief that this show is asking of its viewers. In general, people are sometimes at least marginally smarter than all of these characters, at least enough to notice really obvious connections like this one.
Meg is horrified to learn that what they found during Tricia's operation was in fact cancer, but the doctors reassure her that since they caught it early they probably got rid of it. She's shaken because Tricia just had an endoscopy a few months earlier, and she's reminded how fast-moving and aggressive this cancer is. Cristina interrupts to say that taking out her stomach saved Tricia's life. This jolts something in Meg, who turns and informs her brother that the reason Tricia runs their lives and plans everything is because everyone else in their lives is dead. She then turns back to the doctors and demands to have the surgery right now.
After Beth's vitals are under control, Hunt and Arizona talk about how her coding while she seizes makes no sense. Alex explains that she coded before she seized, but Hunt is not totally convinced that's what happened since Beth has no history of heart problems. Arizona goes so far as to condescend that doctors can panic during a seizure and imagine things, which riles Alex who maintains that he didn't panic. He wants to do some sort of test that apparently involves shocking Beth's heart, but Arizona won't even consider it since she thinks the heart is healthy. But Hunt seems to be considering the option, much to her surprise, and he muses that if Alex was right it would explain her coding. Arizona points out that if he's wrong they would kill her, but Alex yells that he's not wrong. Hunt, then, makes it Alex's call as to if they will perform the test.
Izzie sits with George and mopes that maybe Cristina was right, that trying to teach the interns is pointless. George tells Izzie she shouldn't listen to Cristina, telling her about the comment that since Izzie wants to teach instead of operate, she's the new George. I feel like maybe there could be, oh, a balance between the two -- because teaching is super important, but she is there to learn to be a surgeon, so surgery is still a rather crucial aspect to that as well. And something she should know well if she's going to teach it. Happy medium, people, try it! You might like it! They laugh at George's comment but Izzie tells him sincerely that he does more research, reading and practice than anyone she knows, and that he always strives to be better without stepping on others. She'd be lucky to be the new George. And because George is awesome and not completely self-involved, he seems to detect something in her voice and maybe seems to pick up what's going on; he asks her if she's going to tell him about Patient X. She's saved by the intern, as Lexie runs out to let her know what they missed. Izzie leaves George and goes back with the interns where Lexie presents more information. She thinks that a CT was wrong and she wants to do an MRI with contrast, figuring that whatever X has is already in her brain. Izzie looks so pleased with them for a moment that I really wondered if she had already diagnosed herself and really was just trying to teach them -- wouldn't this be more of an unhappy surprise? But then her face falls, so maybe she is just marginally better at hiding her emotions today than she usually is.
The team takes out Meg's stomach and Bailey and Richard have the same staples vs. sewing fight, but this time Richard announces that she doesn't want to be a general surgeon so he gets to make the decisions. She's a bit of a smart-ass back to him when she says she was just expressing her opinion but it still doesn't warrant his reaction, which is once again straight-up yelling. He has another tantrum, this time yelling that she doesn't get an opinion, it's his patient, his hospital, and once it's hers she can make the decision but it's his all his gimme gimme gimme. I'm honestly surprised he didn't stamp his foot as well. Everyone in the room is clearly embarrassed but he actually goes on to order, "And I want all of you people to do what I say!" Bailey agrees with a curt, "Yes, sir," and begins to sew.
In another OR, the surgeons are calmer but the general attitude is also snide disapproval. Alex tells Beth she'll be in good hands, and she goes to sleep. Once down, Arizona pointedly asks Alex if he's sure. He says that he is, so she puts him on the crash cart and tells him if he's wrong, he should be ready to use it. Way to support your staff and work together to save the life of a child there, people. Alex positions the paddles over Beth's chest.
Once Megan is out of surgery, they tell her that her tests came back clear for the cancer. They ask how she's doing and she admits the wound hurts a little but then turns to her sister and asks, "But not too bad, right?" Tricia agrees but Kostas knows they're doing it for him and laughs it off. Tricia asks if he remembers how much pain their mother was in and when he says he doesn't, reminds him of the pain and all of the tubes. Kostas finally explains himself, that he was two when that happened and the only reason he knows it's sad and horrible is because Tricia has told him so. But he doesn't have nightmares about funerals or freak out over any stomach pain at all. He tells his sister that it's her fear, not his, and she should let him decide. Cristina raises an eyebrow of certain judgment but just keeps working on a chart. I think they're both kind of not communicating here -- he's got a valid point that she needs to respect, but he also could stand to take all their dead relatives a little bit more seriously.
Hunt and Arizona do whatever it is they are doing to Beth's heart but nothing happens. Arizona is still in a snit about the whole situation and then Beth starts to go down, so Hunt tells Alex to shock her. Before he can, though, Hunt tells him to hold off since Beth starts to come out of it. Arizona is stunned to realize that it is a problem with her heart not getting oxygen to her brain, causing the seizures. Hunt tells Alex that he just saved Beth's life, but Alex doesn't seem to hear him and seems traumatized by the fact that he just nearly shocked her -- he's shaking and breathing deep with the paddles still hovering. Hunt comes over and calmly talks him out of it, telling him to breathe, and eventually Arizona drops the paddles and we're treated to a really artsy slow-mo shot of them bouncing near the floor.
Mark walks up and proudly tells the Chief about the three surgeries he managed but Richard isn't listening since he's too busy glaring at the board. Nelson is watching him from his other side, wearing scrubs. Richard asks Mark if he heard from Derek, which of course he hasn't. The way Nelson is hovering with no one noticing, I'm expecting him to come back and shoot up the place in a psychotic rage in a couple of episodes or something so that people will notice him. But for now he waits. Bailey walks up and immediately begins to tell the Chief that she tried to not take things personally and knows he's under pressure, but that the way he yelled at her in front of her residents wasn't acceptable. She tells them that they need to find a way to work together and he responds... by walking away and ignoring her. She gapes after him and calls, "Real mature!" Oh Bailey, it's really mature. REALLY. You are better than bad grammar!
Lexie is speaking on behalf of the interns, and they have a diagnosis: Metastatic melanoma that has spread to the liver, skin and brain. Izzie's face drops just enough that I think she really didn't know, but the interns all look really proud. With chemo and radiation, the diagnosis is that X has a few months to live but Ryan adds dismissively that's a best case scenario. "Girl's pretty much toast." Stinky adds that there's only a 5% survival rate, entirely dependent on how talks go between Heigl's people and the network. Okay, that last part was my own. The interns start to chatter about how they'd spend their last few months and then Graciella asks happily what their prize is for getting it right. Izzie loses her cool and yells angrily that their prize is that they didn't screw up and that they got to be doctors, while dramatic music emphasizes her words to the ungrateful little wretches.
Out in the hall, Richard is stunned to see a very angry Adele arrive and order him into the conference room while Bailey smirks. Adele then orders her in too, and she happily grabs her coffee and skips in.
Beth is touching the spot in her chest where they've put in a pacemaker and asks in awe if she's not sick anymore, adding, "A wrestler fixed me." I do love the nod to high school stereotypes of which we all are guilty. Alex explains that she still has a heart problem and has to see a cardiologist, but she's just thrilled that no one else has to know, and she won't have to wear a bracelet. With tears in her eyes she tells him, "It's everything. Once people see you as sick they don't see you as anything else." CLUNK. I'm sorry, the anvil that is Izzie's new illness just nearly flattened me. The seizure patrol comes in and gripes that they didn't win a trophy and when Beth says there's always season, they rudely suggest she try out something else and lie badly that they're just worried for her safety. Alex announces that they don't have to worry since they fixed her. "Epileptic bone." Ms. Seizure Patrol spits back that there's no such thing so Alex demands to know if she's a doctor. Ms. SP then asks skeptically if Beth is normal now and Alex replies, "Dude, none of you are normal. You're freaking band nerds." The seizure patrol sulk their way out of the room, but Beth just laughs.
Adele immediately takes Richard to task for his "petty, infantile" behavior and demands to know if he's running a hospital or a playground. Richard tries to tell his wife he won't be spoken to like that but she just cuts him off to demand, "Hospital or playground, Richard!" He mumbles that it's a hospital and so she tells him to start acting like it and apologize. Please, oh please let this lesson stick, because 17 episodes of the Chief acting like a whiny child is quite enough. She also demands that he apologize to Bailey and yells at him when his apology is totally insincere. She then orders him and Bailey to work their problems out and before she leaves, tells Bailey to wipe the smile off of her face because she's no better by, "Tattling on a man to his wife." True, it's low, but it's also effective.
Kostas is very good at being an obnoxious frat boy and he tosses candy in his mouth while talking to Meg, knowing that it's killing Tricia as she watches from the doorway. Tricia gripes to Mere that Kostas is just doing this so that he can keep eating jelly beans, but Mere gently assures her it's probably more than that. Tricia is livid as she says then it's about girls, or snowboards, or whatever but those things don't matter. As I've already said, I get where she's coming from but she really needs a new approach. Mere assures her they'll be vigilant in monitoring his condition, but Tricia bitterly informs her that he's going to have the surgery, because she'll be on him until she dies to get it done. Mere asks, "And if he just wants to be left alone?" Tricia informs her, "You don't leave the people you love alone, Dr. Grey." She adds that her fear will save her brother's life. This is really kind of a bad parallel to Meredith's situation with Derek because if Meredith acted like Tricia it certainly would only make Derek more upset, but oh well. Meredith learns a lesson about persisting and helping, blah blah blah.
Lexie walks in to where Izzie is looking at all the films and sincerely tells her that she learned a lot by diagnosing a patient beginning to end, and thanks Izzie for teaching them. I spent a while being unsure about Lexie, but I think they've done a good job developing her and I'm fully on board now. Izzie then asks Lexie how she'd break the news, clearly needing to hear something that isn't just the interns laughing about how she's a goner. Lexie thinks a moment before saying she'd express how sorry she was and talk about support groups, but then she dies off and admits she doesn't know what you say to someone in that situation. Izzie jumps in to say that they have a choice to run away or face it. She also (mercifully) says that they should be around their loved ones because it's going to be a hard fight and they need all the support they can get. Please, oh please let this mean we're not going to go through a month of her trying to hide that she's got cancer. Izzie says that even though the odds are bad... but then her own voice dies and Lexie jumps in to say screw the odds. Her mom died of the hiccups, which generally has a 100% survival rate. She gets more passionate as she says that odds are crap and so Patient X should face it and fight, but then calms down and says maybe those aren't the exact words. But Izzie tells her, "Exactly those words." And then Lexie goes off, ignoring the fact that clearly she just talked to Patient X.
Hunt is working on the computer when Cristina comes in and pokes him, causing him to jump and ask what she's doing as she leans in and starts typing. She announces that she's assigning herself to a trauma for the day and over his protests, declares that she's a big girl who can handle herself, and she'll decide what's enough. "It's going to take a lot more than a bad dream to scare me off." Hunt gently tells her it's more than a bad dream, and just as gently she says that she knows, and touches his cheek. It's a nice moment between the two.
Mere is doing research in the cafeteria that night when Richard walks in and sits down. He then tells her that although he knows he has no right to ask anything of her... I hate that kind of comment. You're clearly going to break it, so just ask and don't try to make yourself look better first. He needs her to bring Derek back to the hospital and before she can answer he adds, "And he's not fine." Mere maintains her stance from before, with Tricia, and says that sometimes people want to be left alone. The Chief sighs, and then pulls out the big guns -- he tells Meredith about the ring and that Derek was planning to propose. "That's not a man who wants to be left alone." Mere is dumbstruck and Richard lamely explains that he just thought she should know. Way to meddle in people's lives solely for your own gain, Chief.
Lexie walks up to Mark and, fired up from her conversation with Izzie, tells him that she knows the odds are against them because all she does is break him, but that's not nothing and they shouldn't give up. Mark quiets her and asks, "You think you broke me, Little Grey? You're the one that put me back together." And that, my friends, is how you slowly bring about a believable relationship between two unlikely characters. He puts his arm around her and of course Lexie grabs his hand without thinking, causing him to gasp. Nelson then walks by and asks Mark if he wants to grab a drink, but Mark tells "John" he needs to rain check. As he leaves, NotDerek meekly corrects, "It's Jim." I feel really sorry for this guy, actually, but I still feel like he's going to go nuts sooner than later. My notes for this episode in fact read: "He might light the hospital on fire."
Arizona gets in the elevator with Callie, both in street clothes. Arizona begins to talk about her day, admitting she had her ass handed to her by Alex, but Callie cuts her off. She tells her one-time suitor that they don't have to do this and that they can perfectly well just hide from each other for the long while, but Arizona then takes her turn and says Callie isn't hearing her. She admits that sometimes she misjudges a situation, and that she'd like to take Callie to dinner. Callie immediately tries to play cool and surprises Arizona by giving her a wishy-washy answer... but then immediately turns back around and asks if tomorrow night is okay.
Izzie is waiting in the locker room and says goodbye first to Meredith and then to George, who stops a moment to talk to his friend. He says he's been keeping his distance since she's with Alex but that he still cares, and then asks her if she wants to talk about "it." George may be the butt of all their jokes, but he's the only one who manages to tell when something is wrong with one of his friends. I don't know how much he's guessed, but he accepts it when Izzie tells him she's not yet ready, and he wishes her good night. Izzie then walks towards Cristina, sits down to her and asks, "You don't like me very much, do you?" Cristina stutters and looks around like she's trapped but Izzie quickly says that it's a good thing, because she has to tell Cristina something because she's a robot who can handle it. Cristina still has a little bit of "soft" left of her own from her conversation with Hunt and she agrees; Izzie's voice cracks as she says that she can't tell her there and Cristina actually looks a bit concerned.
Ugh, now I have to recap Derek at his absolute worst. He does "absolute worst" well -- he's back at his trailer, drunk and swinging a baseball bat in the night. How wonderfully cliché of him. Mere walks up and points out that he moved all of his things out of the house, but Derek just tells her to go home. As Meredith tries to coax him back into the world where he could face his mistake and move on, he gets more and more bitter, and spits back that Meredith should understand his hiding since she wrote the book on that, and on quitting... "You wrote a lot of books, Meredith." She just maintains that she's there now, but he chuckles meanly and grunts that she wanted him out since the day he moved in, and that she's incapable of any commitment. He accuses her of saying she was fixed when there's no fixing her. "You're a lemon." She's clearly getting pissed and trying to control herself as she tells him he's drunk. The problem is, he's a self-centered immature, asshole man-child who knows how to be crueler than anything when he wants to -- and I don't know about you but that's the kind of person I try to steer far clear of. You don't want to be with someone who can turn on a dime and cut you down to the bone at any given moment. But Meredith seems to want that, and tells him that he's drunk and angry, which she understands. He again orders her home, saying he's giving her an out like she's always wanted. Finally, with no other arguments left, she tells him that she knows about the ring. Derek is momentarily struck dumb and she says that the Chief told her. Derek looks completely devastated as he pulls it out of his pocket and asks, "You want the ring? Here's your ring." With that, he takes it out of the box and bats it away into the night. Way to respect an heirloom from your mother, you asshole. You may be mad at Meredith but I'd say you had no real right to do that, angry or not. Man, I can't stand Derek.
Meredith's VO reminds us, "Every surgeon has a shadow." With that, Derek throws the bat down and goes into his trailer. Meredith calls after him, "Is that the best you've got? Because I'm not bailing. We're in this together." He just screams at her through the door to go home and the show moves to the ring, glinting in the grass as Mere VO's: "And the only way to get rid of a shadow is to turn off the lights.
"To stop running from the darkness. And face what you fear." Over the vent that helped blow Cristina's troubles away, we see Izzie's lips move as she presumably admits her cancer to Cristina, who remains straight-faced and just listens. Now, for a correction of sorts -- in my recaplet I said that thank goodness this is serious enough and requires such extreme treatment that Izzie won't be able to hide it from her friends. Any of you who saw the -on probably guessed that I didn't see it, where in fact it seems that Izzie is trying to do just that. But I'll say here that I hope that doesn't last long, because this really is an opportunity for a meaty and fresh story that isn't just another version of people not trusting their friends and acting like morons. I'm spending the few days offering up prayers to the TV gods that we get some good stuff out of the last few episodes of this season of Grey's.
Discuss this episode in the Grey's forums, and take a look back at the show's most annoying storylines ever.